At least two injured in Jakarta building collapse

Yahoo – AFP, 6 January 2020

A mixed-use building in Jakarta partly collapsed, injuring at least two

A five-storey building in Jakarta partly collapsed Monday morning, injuring at least two people who were taken to hospital, authorities said.

TV images showed about half the building on Jakarta's western side had caved in with concrete and other debris lying on the road. Rescue officials were seen carrying people out on stretchers.

The structure is a mixed residential-commercial space with a convenience store on the ground floor and small rental units on the upper floors.

"The upper floors of the building were empty, while the second floor was a warehouse and a place for employees to rest," West Jakarta police chief Audie Latuheru told reporters.

"The employees ran away when they heard creaking sounds. The two injured people were outside of the building when the accident happened," he added.

Indonesia's national search and rescue agency said three people were injured.

Initial media reports said eight people were wounded, but police later said that figure included those evacuated from the building.

It was not immediately clear what caused the accident or if it was connected to the flooding sparked by torrential rain in the capital region last week that left more than 60 people dead.

The search and rescue agency said it appeared that the downpours may have played a role.

"We found evidence of flooding on the rooftop and the third and fourth floors had no water drainage system," said Budi Purnama, national operations director for Indonesia's search and rescue agency.

Map of Indonesia locating Jakarta where a five-storey building partly collapsed 

on Monday

"Water had seeped through the walls... the structure couldn't hold it any longer."

Police and eyewitness said the accident started shortly after 9:00 am local time (0200 GMT).

"The building just suddenly collapsed," eyewitness Ridwan Ria told AFP.

"There was a thundering noise and it happened very quickly. In seconds the building had collapsed.

"There was no sound or weird noise beforehand," the 60-year-old shop owner added.

Another witness said there was water dripping from the ceiling of the building's shop on Sunday.

"I noticed since yesterday that something was wrong," the witness, identified as Juni, told local TV.

"I went to the store yesterday and saw the place was damp with water dripping from the ceiling."

Police told AFP that another witness, identified as a convenience store employee, said the building had started leaning to one side two years ago.

Lax construction standards have raised widespread concerns about building safety in Indonesia.

In 2018, a group of teenagers practising for a dance and music show were among seven killed when the building they were in collapsed in Cirebon, east of Jakarta.

The same year, at least 75 people were injured when a mezzanine floor at Indonesia's stock exchange building in Jakarta collapsed into the lobby.

Restart of Notre-Dame restoration pushed back to August 19

Yahoo – AFP, August 9, 2019

Work at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris has been halted since July 25 over
lead contamination risks (AFP Photo/STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN)

Paris (AFP) - Renovation work at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris could resume on August 19, a government official said Friday, after the clean-up was halted last month over fears that workers could be exposed to lead poisoning.

Testing revealed dangerously high levels of lead contamination at the site as well as at nearby schools and other buildings, prompting fears that workers and residents risked exposure to the toxic metal.

Hundreds of tonnes of lead in the roof and steeple melted during the April 15 blaze that nearly destroyed the gothic masterpiece, with winds spreading the particles well beyond the church's grounds.

But after weeks of denying any poisoning risks, authorities admitted in late July that anti-contamination measures were insufficient, and two schools near the church were closed after hazardous lead levels were detected.

A worker sprays a gel to absorb lead on the playground at a school on the Rue 

Saint Benoit, near Notre-Dame, on August 8 (AFP Photo/Martin BUREAU)

Since then officials have been racing to implement tougher safety measures for workers at the site, while deploying new methods to remove lead residue from school playgrounds.

Prefect Michel Cadot, the government's top official for the Paris region, will allow work to resume "once there is a guarantee the new measures are in place," his office said in a statement.

Officials had originally said the clean-up could begin next week, but the target date is now set for August 19, it said.

New techniques

This week workers dressed head-to-toe in white hazmat suits sprayed a blue-green gel onto the playground at the two closed schools on the Rue Saint-Benoit, where dozens of children had been attending summer daycare programmes.

Hundreds of tonnes of lead in the roof and steeple melted during the April 15 blaze 

that nearly destroyed the gothic masterpiece (AFP Photo/Geoffroy VAN DER HASSELT)

According to city officials, the gel attracted and trapped the lead particles on the ground as it dried, and was later removed with high-pressure hoses.

That procedure and others will also be used on the square in front of Notre-Dame and on streets in the immediately vicinity.

Readings of more than 70 microgrammes per square meter indicate potential health hazards, but testing has found much higher levels at buildings as far as one kilometre from Notre-Dame.

Last week, the city revealed that some schools and daycares beyond a 500-metre perimeter of the church still showed isolated readings of more than 1,000 microgrammes on playgrounds or windowsills.

The clean-up was halted last month over fears that workers could be exposed

to lead poisoning (AFP Photo/STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN)

Critics have accused the city of failing to notify the public about the worrying results, while an environmental group has filed a lawsuit alleging that officials failed to sufficiently contain the contamination.

Others have urged authorities to cover the entire church with protective cladding to contain the particles, a system often used when removing asbestos.

City officials have rejected the proposal as too costly and complex.

But they have vowed that no schools will reopen in September unless the lead risk has been completely eradicate.

French workers began efforts to remove lead from the area around Notre-Dame cathedral which was contaminated by the devastating April fire, sparking public health concerns and forcing the suspension of restoration work https://t.co/HKQVPcMBLh

— AFP news agency (@AFP) 13 augustus 2019

Skill shortage could hold up Notre Dame rebuild: UK architect

Yahoo – AFP, James PHEBY, April 17, 2019

The fire at Windsor Castle started when a curtain was ignited by a spotlight
pressed against it (AFP Photo/EPA)

London (AFP) - One of the architects who helped restore Windsor Castle after a devastating fire said a shortage of craftsmen could hold up the reconstruction of Notre-Dame.

"The supply of craftsmen with the skill to work so much stone, so much timber, so much lead, so much glass for the windows is something which the industry in the whole of Europe may well be challenged to meet at the present moment," Francis Maude, director at the Donald Insall Associates architect firm, told AFP.

"There are other very large projects which are facing the same limitations," he said, giving the example of the Houses of Parliament where his firm is also working.

Maude's firm was called upon by the British royal family to help restore Windsor Castle following a fire in 1992 that also shocked the country.

The fire began in the Queen's Private Chapel when a curtain was ignited by a spotlight pressed up against it. It spread to the State Apartments, including St George's banqueting hall, and engulfed Brunswick Tower.

There were no casualties, also thanks to the quick reaction of the castle's own small fire brigade.

The restoration work began in 1995 and was completed in 1997, costing £36.5 million at the time.

The cathedral's relatively bare interior should count in its favour, compared to 

Windsor Castle (AFP Photo/LUDOVIC MARIN)

As part of the renovation, a specially commissioned stained-glass window was installed in the medieval surrounding depicting a firefighter battling the blaze.

The castle's grandest rooms were restored to their former state while others were modernised, and the issue of how faithfully to stick to the original design is likely to be the source of "big discussion" when rebuilding the iconic Parisian cathedral.

"There will be some who think the only way we can restore Notre-Dame is to make it exactly the same as it was before," said Maude.

Alternatively, restorers could draw inspiration from the rebuilding of Reims Cathedral after World War One, when a fire-resistant steel roof was installed.

Stonework at risk

Maude pointed out that "there has already been a process of change at Notre-Dame" with the 19th century restoration work done by French architect Viollet-le-Duc, and that carefully selected parts of the church could be modernised, making it more efficient and less at risk of future fires.

But it is likely to be many months before the mammoth cleaning-up process ends and an assessment made on which parts of the 850-year-old Gothic masterpiece can be salvaged.

"One particular difficulty which I can imagine is the cathedral being largely constructed of limestone," warned Maude.

Donors have already pledged hudreds of millions of euros for restoration 

(AFP Photo/FRANCOIS GUILLOT)

When limestone is exposed to temperatures of over eight hundred degrees centigrade, it "decays through chemical reaction... and it's then rather difficult to use it again," he said.

"I can imagine that there's going to be a lot of the historic surface of the stonework lost but there may be stone buried deeper within the walls which can be capped."

 'A symbol of renewal'

The cathedral's relatively bare interior should count in its favour, compared to Windsor Castle, where centuries of redevelopments led to a complex web of empty spaces behind the walls.

Money does not appear to be an issue, with billionaire donors already pledging hundreds of millions of euros.

The director said he would be "delighted to be invited" to help in the restoration, which he believes could end up revitalising the UNESCO world heritage landmark.

"It can be a symbol of renewal," he said of the fire.

"There's also an opportunity in some parts of a rebuilt Notre-Dame to have a new expression of an artistic temperament for our own times."

Macron vows to rebuild a 'more beautiful' Notre-Dame in 5 years

Yahoo – AFP, Stuart WILLIAMS and Clare BYRNE, April 16, 2019

Notre-Dame's spectacular Gothic spire collapsed as fire engulfed the cathedral
(AFP Photo/Geoffroy VAN DER HASSELT)

Paris (AFP) - President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday vowed to rebuild Notre-Dame cathedral "even more beautifully" within five years, as France reeled with shock from the fire that gutted the great Paris landmark.

Macron announced the fast timescale -- for a process some experts said would take decades -- in an address to the nation where he hailed how the disaster had shown the capacity of France to mobilise and unite.

Pledges worth around 700 million euros ($790 million) have already been made Tuesday from French billionaires and businesses to restore the Gothic masterpiece.

Most of the roof has been destroyed, its steeple has collapsed and an unknown number of artifacts and paintings have been lost. The main organ, which had close to 8,000 pipes, has also suffered damage.

But the cathedral's walls, bell towers and the most famous circular stained-glass windows at France's most visited tourist attraction remain intact.

'Our history never stops'

Macron's defiant comments indicated he wants the reconstruction of the cathedral to be completed by the time Paris hosts the Olympic Games in 2024.

"We will rebuild the cathedral even more beautifully and I want it to be finished within five years," Macron said from the Elysee Palace. "And we can do it."

Macron said that the dramatic fire had brought out the best in a country riven with divisions and since November shaken by sometimes violent protests against his rule.

"What we saw last night in Paris was our capacity to mobilise and to unite," Macron said, hailing France as a nation of "builders".

"Our history never stops and that we will always have trials to overcome," he said.

Firefighters said the blaze had been extinguished after 15 hours (AFP 

Photo/Hubert Hitier)

'Saved in half an hour'

Images from inside the cathedral Tuesday showed its immense walls standing proud, with statues still in place and a gleaming golden cross above the altar.

However the floor was covered in charred rubble from the fallen roof and water while parts of the vaulting at the top of the cathedral had collapsed.

Junior interior minister Laurent Nunez told reporters at the scene that work to secure the structure would continue into Thursday, allowing firefighters access to remove remaining artifacts and artworks.

He said the building had been saved within a critical time window of 15-30 minutes by a team of 400 firefighters who worked flat out throughout the night.

Though "some weaknesses" in the 850-year-old structure had been identified, overall it is "holding up OK", he added.

President Donald Trump relayed Americans' "condolences" to Macron over the fire, the White House said.

French fire chiefs had earlier dismissed as "risible" comments by Trump that the fire should be tackled with water bombers, saying this risked destroying the entire edifice of the cathedral.

The Paris fire service said that the last remnants of the blaze were extinguished Tuesday, 15 hours after the fire broke out.

Renovation work on the steeple, where workers were replacing its lead covering, is widely suspected to have caused the inferno after the blaze broke out in an area under scaffolding.

Investigators interviewed witnesses overnight and began speaking with employees of five different construction companies that were working on the monument, said public prosecutor Remy Heitz.

"Nothing indicates this was a deliberate act," Heitz told reporters, adding that 50 investigators had been assigned to what he expected to be a "long and complex" case.

The world reacted in shock after the blaze enguled Notre-Dame (AFP Photo)

'For future generations'

A public appeal for funds drew immediate support from French billionaires and other private donors as well as from countries including Germany, Italy and Russia which offered expertise.

French billionaire Bernard Arnault and his LVMH luxury conglomerate, rival high-end designer goods group Kering, Total oil company and cosmetics giant L'Oreal each pledged 100 million euros or more.

Support came from outside France as well, with Apple chief Tim Cook announcing the tech giant would give an unspecified amount to help restore a "precious heritage for future generations."

But experts had warned a full restoration will take many years. "I'd say decades," said Eric Fischer, head of the foundation in charge of restoring the 1,000-year-old Strasbourg cathedral.

Treasures evacuated

Thousands of Parisians and tourists watched in horror Monday as flames engulfed the building and rescuers tried to save as much as they could of the cathedral's treasures.

Many more came Tuesday to the banks of the river Seine to gaze at where the roof and steeple once stood.

A firefighter suffered injuries during the blaze, which at one point threatened to bring down one of the two monumental towers on the western facade of the cathedral that is visited by 13 million tourists each year.

The Holy Crown of Thorns, believed to have been worn by Jesus at his crucifixion, was saved by firefighters, as was a sacred tunic worn by 13th-century French king Louis IX.

Rescuers formed a human chain at the site of the disaster to evacuate as many artifacts as possible, which were then stocked temporarily at the Paris town hall.

Firefighters were praised for helping save many of the most-celebrated treasures of Notre-Dame by dashing inside the burning cathedral, but officials warned that others were in a precarious state or entirely lost in the flames https://t.co/pF0qxYfXeL pic.twitter.com/MTeRjyI2dN

— AFP news agency (@AFP) 16 april 2019

Related Article:

"The End of History"- Nov 20, 2010 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) - (Text-Version)

".... Europe

Let's talk about Europe - Eastern and Western Europe. Look at the history. I want you to look at the history of the Europeans. What do you know about them? What did you study in school about them, American? You had to learn all those dates and facts. You sit in a country that's barely 200 years old and you had to memorize all the battles and all those conquerors and all those army specifics for hundreds of years! Fourteen hundreds, 1300s - all the way to the present century they seemed to be conquering each other on a regular basis. They warred with each other like the tides of the ocean, constant and predictable. When they got tired of that, they conquered other continents. The small country of Spain alone is responsible for conquering all of South America, middle America and well up into North America. Millions today are speaking their language who never did before they arrived.

The armies of Napoleon spread across parts of Europe like water flowing in a river, conquering everything in its path. There are some cities today in Europe that still don't know which country they belong to! This is because their borders kept changing so often! Now, that's history. I want you to look at it carefully. Still, there would be those who say, "This is just what men do. They create borders and cultures and they go to war. That's Human nature."

Fifty years ago, this new energy started to arrive. Oh, the alignments go slow, dear Human Being, but it was here. It was starting; it was beginning. Fifty years ago, something happened in Europe and you didn't hear much about it back then. Some very clear thinkers got together after World War II and said, "If we don't do something different and out of the box of today's thinking, it's all going to happen again because this is what we do. Men make war." Even the young country called America was involved in war. America itself almost split apart before that, because that's what men do. They split good things apart. It was obvious to these wise men that they could try something, something that might work - a uniting instead of separation. And so they formed an idea. Let me tell you what it was.

They said to themselves, "What if we could get as many countries as we can to agree to become a collection of 'country states'? If we start this now and go at it slowly, we could eventually have a system where we would trade together to the point where the borders come down, no checkpoints and no passports. All these cultures and former enemy countries would all trade evenly together, and for that to happen we might even have a common currency. Look at the United States, for this is how it works there. Europe would never go to war with itself again. It couldn't, since it would be allied financially."

Of course, they were laughed at! Everyone who heard it said it couldn't' be done and that there were just too many issues to solve. Those who objected said, "No, no, no. That's not what we do. We have too many different cultures. There's some with strong currencies, there's some with weak currencies. There are too many objections. Imagine going from one country to another without being inspected at the border? That won't work. Who are you to suggest something of this nature?" And the forward thinkers said, "We are unifiers. And we think it's a good idea so we will have strength and will never war again." That was two generations ago, 50 years.

Today, you have the European Union of States. There are more all the time, way past the original number of countries. Some are "standing in line" to be accepted! The borders are gone and the checkpoints are missing and the currency called the Euro is the strongest currency on Earth - stronger even than yours [the USA]. Now, let me tell you what did that. It's a consciousness shift that even 50 years ago was developing. Through two generations, it slowly allowed for free thinkers to unify things that had never been unified before. The result? These countries will never conquer each other again, because "history" ended at that moment. They started a new paradigm for Europe and one that has no historic profile known to man. The old history of the area is gone, and it will not repeat itself.

Those in the old Eastern Bloc of Europe, where there is still to this day very little unity, will still say, "History will again repeat itself. We are victims of it. It's only a matter of time." But not all of them feel this way. There are some who are starting to feel a unity of spirituality within their own cultures that they were never allowed to speak of before. So they are free thinking, out of the box of the old paradigm. It's new.

There are those who are standing on podiums and in pulpits and are proclaiming, "History is ended. It's the end of suffering. It's the end of dictatorships. It's the end of those who would put us in a low place. Instead, it's the beginning of discovering who we are." And although they don't say it in these exact words, they are discovering the creator inside - that which is the unity of God. So it's a full circle back to what the Angel told Muhammad, isn't it? For unity was the key to peace, and still is. It is a sacred principle and will never change.

Who would have thought this would have happened? The United States is what it is because 200 years ago the founders said, "Let us make a group of state countries without physical borders in a system that's never been tried. It's one of unity - the UNITED States of America." Oh, it had its tests, but the unifiers won. And it is why this country is what it is and is seen and respected for what it is and for what it's done. So young, it is, but representing the new energy, it is.

Your Declaration of Independence was channelled. Did you know that? It was collective effort channelling by those who had asked God for help. Go read it and feel that which is sacred inside, for it unifies and does not separate.

Anger grows in Italy as bridge toll hits 39

Yahoo – AFP, Remi BANET and Vincent-Xavier MORVAN, August 15, 2018

The disaster left one driver's green lorry perched precariously close to the precipice.
The 37-year-old driver told Italian media how he had escaped the "hell" of the
bridge collapse (AFP Photo/Valery HACHE)

Genoa (Italy) (AFP) - Italy's government on Wednesday blamed the firm that operated the collapsed Genoa bridge for the disaster in which at least 39 people died, as it announced a state of emergency in the city.

Search operations, meanwhile, were due to enter a second night with rescuers digging through mountains of crushed concrete.

A vast span of the Morandi bridge caved in during a heavy rainstorm in the northern port city on Tuesday, sending about 35 cars and several trucks plunging 45 metres (150 feet) onto railway tracks below.

Children aged eight, 12 and 13 were among the dead, Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said, adding that more people were still missing. Sixteen people were injured.

The driver of a green lorry left precariously close to the edge told Italian media how he had escaped the "hell" of the bridge collapse.

"It was raining very hard and it wasn't possible to go very fast," he told the Corriere della Sera daily.

"When a car overtook me I slowed down... (then) at a certain moment everything shook. The car in front of me disappeared and seemed to be swallowed up by the clouds. I Looked up and saw the bridge pylon fall," he said.

"Instinctively, finding myself in front of the void, I put the van into reverse, to escape this hell," he added.

Three Chileans, who live in Italy, and four French nationals were also killed.

The tragedy has focussed anger on the structural problems that have dogged the decades old Morandi bridge and the private sector firm Autostrade per l'Italia, which is currently in charge of operating and maintaining swathes of the country's motorways.

Deputy prime minister Luigi Di Maio said the tragedy "could have been avoided".

"Autostrade should have done maintenance and didn't do it," he alleged.

Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte also confirmed that his government would push to revoke the company's contract for the A10 motorway, which includes the bridge, while Transport Minister Danilo Toninelli said the company should be fined up to 150 million euros ($170 million).

The firm, which said the bridge had been undergoing maintenance work, however, released a statement refuting accusations of underfunding of motorway infrastructure.

"In the last five years (2012-2017) the company's investment in the security, maintenance and strengthening of the network has been over one billion euros a year," it said.

'I went down with the car'

Survivors recounted the heart-stopping moment when the bridge buckled, tossing vehicles and hunks of concrete into the abyss.

Davide Capello, a former goalkeeper for Italian Serie A club Cagliari, plunged with his car but was unscathed.

The bridge has been riddled with structural problems since its construction, which 

has led to expensive maintenance and severe criticism from engineering experts

(AFP Photo/Piero CRUCIATTI)

"I was driving along the bridge, and at a certain point I saw the road in front of me collapse, and I went down with the car," he told TV news channel Sky TG24.

As cars and trucks tumbled off the bridge, Afifi Idriss, 39, a Moroccan truck driver, just managed to stop in time.

"I saw the green lorry in front of me stop and then reverse so I stopped too, locked the truck and ran," he told AFP.

While around a dozen apartment blocks that stand in the shadow of the viaduct were largely spared the impact of the falling concrete, the Liguria regional government said some 634 people had been evacuated.

Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said the homes would have to be pulled down.

'A tragedy waiting to happen'

The incident is the latest in a string of bridge collapses in Italy, a country prone to damage from seismic activity but where infrastructure generally is showing the effects of a faltering economy.

The Morandi viaduct, completed in 1967, spans dozens of railway lines.

The bridge has been riddled with structural problems since its construction, which has led to expensive maintenance and severe criticism from engineering experts.

On Tuesday engineering website "Ingegneri.info" called it "a tragedy waiting to happen".

Conte also announced after a cabinet meeting Wednesday that a national day of mourning was being planned.

There would also be a 12-month state of emergency in Genoa, he said, with five million euros of funds going into recovery work.

Russian governor resigns over deadly mall blaze

Yahoo – AFP, Anna SMOLCHENKO, April 1, 2018

At least 64 people including 41 children died in the mall fire in Siberia
last weekend (AFP Photo/Dmitry Serebryakov)

Moscow (AFP) - The longtime governor of a Russian region where a huge mall inferno killed dozens of people -- most of them children -- resigned on Sunday after bitter criticism over his response to the tragedy.

Aman Tuleyev, who had been at the helm of the coal-mining region of Kemerovo since 1997, said in a video address that he could no longer remain at his post with "such a heavy burden" and that quitting was "the only right choice".

The Kremlin swiftly said that President Vladimir Putin had accepted his resignation.

Tuleyev's move is unusual as top officials in Russia rarely resign over failings in the emergency response to deadly tragedies.

But the huge fire which ravaged a shopping centre in the Siberian industrial city of Kemerovo last Sunday, killing at least 64 people including 41 children, plunged Russia into shock.

Some parents lost all their children, and the youngest victim was a two-year-old boy.

Many people who lost relatives have said they perished because of inaction by firefighters and police lacking the necessary equipment and skills, while some said a cinema door was locked, trapping children inside.

Kremlin about-face

Tuleyev, who himself lost a young relative in the blaze, came under heavy criticism for failing to visit the scene of the tragedy in the first few days or meet with angry relatives.

Putin had initially refused to sack the 73-year-old governor despite a rare protest which saw thousands of people pack a square in Kemerovo on Tuesday, the same day Putin travelled to the scene of the tragedy.

Aman Tuleyev, shown with Putin after a mine explosion in 2010, was one of 

Russia's longest-serving top governors (AFP Photo/ALEXEI NIKOLSKY)

Tuleyev apologised to the president over the rally -- where protesters also called for Putin's resignation -- calling its organisers troublemakers.

Officials have said that multiple safety rules were violated, the fire alarm system was not working and staff did not follow correct emergency procedures.

The four-storey shopping mall was redeveloped several times and previously housed a sweet factory.

Seven people have been arrested in the aftermath of the blaze, investigators said.

The ailing Tuleyev had long been expected to leave the post.

The Kemerovo region of around 2.7 million people has traditionally been considered one of Russia's most troubled areas and some have feared that Tuleyev's departure could spark a leadership crisis there.

Tuleyev, who first became governor in the era of president Boris Yeltsin in 1997, is one of Russia's longest-serving top officials.

A makeshift memorial has been set up in tribute to the victims of a deadly shopping 
mall fire in the Siberian city of Kemerovo (AFP Photo/Dmitry Serebryakov)

He was credited with helping pacify the region which was beset by miners' strikes in the turbulent 1990s but had come to symbolise the worst excesses of authoritarianism in his later years, critics say.

'Hated by everyone'

Lev Shlosberg, a former lawmaker and rights activist, said Tuleyev "had become senile", adding that the tragedy had clearly shown that Russia turned into a "mafia" state.

"This is not an emotional or symbolic but a very concrete state of the authorities: they do not represent people and absolutely do not defend the interests of citizens because they do not depend on them in any way and do not hear them," he wrote in a blog.

"The life of an ordinary man in a mafia state costs nothing."

"Tuleyev is an example of how one climbs down from the throne after failing to leave on time: disgraced and hated by everyone, with stains of blood and someone else's tears," one commentator said on Twitter.

Opposition politician Vladimir Milov said it would take "decades" for the region to recover from Tuleyev's 21-year rule.

Thousands of people packed a square in Kemerovo to protest over the Russian 

authorities' response to the deadly mall fire (AFP Photo/Dmitry Serebryakov)

Sergei Tsivilyov, who has been Tuleyev's deputy since March, has been appointed acting governor, the Kremlin said.

Tsivilyov is a business partner of one of Putin's closest lieutenants, Gennady Timchenko, who has been under sanctions imposed on Russia for its role in the Ukraine conflict.

Tsivilyov's behaviour in the aftermath of the blaze has raised eyebrows.

Igor Vostrikov, a man who lost his wife, sister and three children aged two, five and seven years, accused the authorities of treating people "like dirt".

Tsivilyov responded by accusing him of a "PR stunt" but later went down on his knees in front of the crowd massed in Kemerovo, asking for forgiveness over the fire.

Polls to elect a new governor will be held in September.

Engineer warned of cracking in US bridge before deadly collapse

Yahoo – AFP, Leila MACOR, March 17, 2018

The pedestrian bridge that collapsed in Miami had only been installed over
the weekend (AFP Photo/Antoni BELCHI)

Miami (AFP) - The chief engineer of a Florida bridge project warned authorities of cracking in the structure days before it collapsed, killing at least six people, the southern US state's department of transportation said Friday.

Chief engineer Denney Pate left a voicemail on a Florida Department of Transportation employee's landline on March 13, two days before the pedestrian walkway came crashing down on the major road beneath, the department said in a statement.

The voicemail -- which was not heard until Friday because the employee it was left for was out of the office -- mentioned a problem, but did not warn that structural failure was imminent.

There was "some cracking that's been observed on the north end of the span," Pate said, according to a transcript of the call.

"Obviously some repairs or whatever will have to be done but from a safety perspective we don't see that there's any issue there," Pate said.

At least eight cars were trapped when the 950-ton (tonne) bridge suddenly gave way on Thursday, Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Division Chief Paul Estopinan said.

The walkway, which connected Florida International University to a student housing area, had been raised less than a week ago but was not expected to be operational until 2019.

Death toll could rise

Miami-Dade county police spokesman Alvaro Zabaleta told reporters that on Friday rescue operations shifted to one of body recovery, with engineers fearing the support structures at either end of the bridge could also come down.

"The entire bridge is in jeopardy," Zabaleta said.

Juan Perez, director of the Miami-Dade police department later told reporters that a team of government prosecutors was on the scene as part of the investigation, but stressed it was too soon to say whether criminal charges would be brought.

Emergency personnel searched for victims at the scene of a bridge collapse in 

Miami (AFP Photo/Miguel GUTIERREZ)

"It is important that we understand, this is a homicide investigation. That's all it is," he said. "That means that somebody died... It does not mean there (are) criminal charges looming or pending or anything like that."

The death toll meanwhile was likely to go up when authorities extracted and identified the remains of victims in vehicles trapped under the rubble, Perez said.

Ten people were taken to hospital after the bridge collapse, Zabaleta said.

Video footage showed the concrete structure suddenly crashing onto the road below.

Police detective Juan Carlos Llera said when the bridge came down, it "sounded like an explosion. A huge bang."

"It looks like a disaster area. It looks literally like a bomb went off," Llera told AFP.

Miami Fire Chief Dave Downey emphasized there was no hope of finding survivors.

Loose cables

The bridge was suspended from cables which came loose, and while they were being tightened the whole thing collapsed, Florida Senator Marco Rubio wrote on Twitter.

The university had just celebrated the walkway's construction, which bridges a busy and dangerous section of highway that students said had been the scene of accidents.

It was raised using an accelerated modular building method that enabled the bridge to go up in the space of a day.

FIGG Engineering Group, one of the partners involved in the walkway's construction, said it was "stunned" by the bridge collapse, and vowed in a statement to "fully cooperate with every appropriate authority in reviewing what happened and why."

Munilla Construction Management, which was also involved, issued a statement of condolence. Bridge collapses in the United States are rare despite rising risks associated with aging infrastructure.

The deadliest such incident this century was in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 2007, when an eight-lane bridge collapsed into the Mississippi River, killing 13 people.